I found something curious in Genesis today. When Jacob fled from Esau, he stopped overnight at Bethel and had a dream of God standing at the top of a ladder. One of the things God told him was,
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” (Genesis 28:15)
So…when did God leave Jacob? Curious?
Flip to Genesis 35:9-15. When Jacob returned from Padan Aram, he returned to the same place at Bethel where he met God twenty years before. And God spoke to Jacob and renewed the covenant He made with Abraham and Isaac and now Jacob. In verse 13 it says, “Then God went up from him in the place where He talked with him…”
First of all, I want to be clear that God NEVER abandoned Jacob! But I believe that what we see here is a special dispensation of God’s presence that came down that ladder, stayed with Jacob all those years, and went back up the ladder when He had fulfilled all He had promised to do in Genesis 28. God never LEFT Jacob in life or in death, but that part of God that went with Jacob for twenty years simply lifted.
What a beautiful thought that God was with Jacob in such a special anointing for all those years, and didn’t lift until He fulfilled every promise!!! He was with Jacob through the good and the bad. Jacob told Laban,
“There I was! In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from my eyes. Thus I have been in your house twenty years…and you have changed my wages ten times.” (Genesis 31:40-41)
And during all of those hot days and cold nights of ho-hum sheep watching, God was right there with him, doing a work in Jacob to transform him from a deceiver into a mighty man of God.
God has also promised to NEVER leave us NOR forsake us. His Holy Spirit is on us with the same anointing that He was on Jacob. He is working within us too, even through our ho-hum days, to transform us into sons and daughters of God. And He will fulfill ALL the promises He has made to each one of us.
So…step out in faith and act on the Word He has spoken to you today! Revisit your Bethel–the time when God met you and promised to help you, the turning point in your walk with the Lord. And see if He hasn’t been faithful to keep His Word to you. He is not finished with you yet; your best is yet to come!